Friday March 11, 2011 3:31 pm

Next Windows Phone 7 update delayed to March

Given the problems with its first Windows Phone 7 update, Microsoft said Thursday that it will delay the next upgrade, which will bring cut and paste functionality, until late March.

"I believe it's important that we learn all we can from the February update. So I've decided to take some extra time to ensure the update process meets our standards, your standards, and the standards of our partners," Eric Hautala, Microsoft's general manager of customer experience engineering, wrote in a blog post. "As a result, our plan is to start delivering the copy-and-paste update in the latter half of March."

Microsoft started rolling out its first, minor update for the Windows Phone 7 platform in late February, but a glitch prompted the company to temporarily halt updates for Samsung phones.

Hautala reiterated Thursday that the "the overwhelming majority" of updates were successful. However, Microsoft is "not satisfied when problems prevent you from enjoying the latest Windows Phone updates."

As a result, the company has been "studying the current update process and will apply the lessons learned from it to all future ones," but that means a slight delay for the next update, which was originally scheduled for early March.

"This short pause should in no way impact the timing of future updates, including the one announced recently at Mobile World Congress featuring multitasking, a Twitter feature, and a new HTML 5-friendly version of Internet Explorer Mobile," he said.

Hautala also explained a bit about the update roll-out process, but denied that carriers have the ability to block a Windows Phone 7 update. "We work closely with carriers to test and schedule updates. They may ask us for a specific date to start an update. They may ask for updates to be bundled together," he wrote. "But you should ultimately receive all the updates we send out."

This article, written by Chloe Albanesius, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.